Dell launching Sputnik, the Ubuntu developer laptop, this year

Encouraged by a successful pilot program, Dell will start selling the computer.

Dell launched an experiment earlier this year to see if it could build a compelling Linux laptop for software developers. The effort, which is codenamed Project Sputnik, pairs the XPS13 Ultrabook with Ubuntu 12.04.

The software environment is tailored for developers, featuring a number of useful tools and a framework for automating the installation of specific development stacks and cloud deployment tools. Dell also did some work on hardware enablement, tweaking drivers to improve touchpad support and support for features like toggling WiFi from the keyboard.

When Project Sputnik was revealed in May, Dell said that it was conducting a six-month pilot program to evaluate the potential of turning the concept into an actual product. In a statement this week, the company announced that it has decided to proceed. Sputnik will officially launch this year and will be available to consumers in select markets. The company says that it is incorporating feedback from developers into the plan.

"Since we announced project Sputnik a little over two months ago, we have continued to be amazed by the amount and quality of interest and input we have received," said Dell marketing director Barton George in a statement. "By listening to developers, Dell can provide them with solutions and products to help make them more productive and allow for greater innovation."

The 13.3-inch XPS 13 has a svelte form factor and reasonable hardware specifications. The current models comes with a solid state drive, Intel graphics, 4GB of RAM, a glossy 1366x768 display, and the option of either an i5 or i7 CPU. It seems like a fairly compelling piece of hardware, aside from the disappointing lack of a 1440x900 display option.

It'll be interesting to see if Sputnik is more successful than any of Dell's previous forays into shipping machines with Linux pre-installed. There have been several such attempts, none of which, IIRC, lasted more than a year.

The XPS 13 is a decent little laptop. We've bought two Samsung Series 9's, a Lenovo U300s, and a Dell XPS 13. The Lenovo is overpriced crap. The Series 9 is our favorite, but the XPS 13 is a close second, especially given its price ($999 vs $1299 for the Samsung). It's an extremely solid machine.

Sputnik is making good progress. They've already got a working touchpad driver, which is usually the hardest bit to solve for Linux on a laptop. I expect we'll be buying more of them as the project matures.

It'll be interesting to see if Sputnik is more successful than any of Dell's previous forays into shipping machines with Linux pre-installed. There have been several such attempts, none of which, IIRC, lasted more than a year.

Well previous attempts were limited in market reach (provide a us-international or the option to select a non-US keyboard, and things could get interesting) and only found in a out of the way corner of dell.com...

Then there was the whole netbook abomination where one could get a higher spec Windows running variant with a mail in rebate, resulting in it costing not much more than the Ubuntu variant.

They've already got a working touchpad driver, which is usually the hardest bit to solve for Linux on a laptop. I expect we'll be buying more of them as the project matures.

Just a funny side note: The touch pad on my ancient Toshiba laptop works better on Ubuntu 12.04 than it ever did with Vista or Windows 7. If they use a Synaptics pointing device, I don't forsee any real issues with the touch pad.

But yes, I'm definitely looking forward to this project developing, as well. Might be my next laptop purchase -- which says quite a bit, because I normally despise anything with the Dell logo on it.

It'll be interesting to see if Sputnik is more successful than any of Dell's previous forays into shipping machines with Linux pre-installed. There have been several such attempts, none of which, IIRC, lasted more than a year.

In the third world countries you can easily find decent Dell/HP/Lenovo/Acer laptops without Windows preinstalled, and usually they're cheaper for 50-70 Euros. That's how I got my laptop. And I am proud to say that my laptop has never run anything else except Linux.

The problem is with first world countries, where Microsoft has complete monopoly over the computer market. If you want laptop with Linux you either pay the windows tax, or you buy it from companies like System76. But that might be quite expensive, especially for someone who doesn't live in North America.

Anyway, this Dell XPS 13 will be sold with windows preinstalled. And the windows tax is a deal breaker for me.

The problem is with first world countries, where Microsoft has complete monopoly over the computer market. If you want laptop with Linux you either pay the windows tax, or you buy it from companies like System76. But that might be quite expensive, especially for someone who doesn't live in North America.

Anyway, this Dell XPS 13 will be sold with windows preinstalled. And the windows tax is a deal breaker for me.

All the crap that companies pay to have installed on laptops would offset the Windows tax I'd think.

It really isn't. Regardless of screen size, coding demands a lot more real estate than plain-Jane WXGA can provide. The MINIMUM I would go with is 1440x900.

Yeah, that's the same vertical resolution as the iBook I had in 2004. Laptop display panels are just about the only part of the spec that's gone backwards over time. Once you get to 13-inch–ish displays, 16:9 just doesn't work well.

4 years ago I bought a dell mini 9 with dellbuntu 8.04it sucked. the kernel was gutted for a fast bootthe dellbuntu was replaced with a dual boot of xp pro and real Ubuntu 8.04

today it runs Ubuntu 12.04 and some times xp in virtual box

I would love this 13" with the regular Ubuntu and the tricked out drivers

I had a Mini 9. The XP install on it was equally bad. The Mini9 seems to be the perfect example of where you want to rip of the reseller's OS installation and replace it with a nice pristine OEM copy of whatever OS you're talking about.

Developing in 1366x768?With something like Eclipse that resolution is a pain even for things like CS class homework. With some real software project this is going to be a wide keyhole with short scrollbar handles...

How about a 15" model with 1920x1200?That's what I'd use if I had to develop more than some batch or shell scripts on the go.

Anyway, I keep my thumbs crossed. Even if it is for a niche market and doesn't seem to fit the bill in my view, more Linux on laptops is good.

Running Linux on a Dell XPS M1530, I'm glad to see they're put work into Linux drivers. The touchpad is a pain to work with on the old XPS, though kernel 3.2 made a large stride toward fixing it (supposedly it's fixed in 3.3 and Liquorix). Ironically though, the touchpad works better under kernel 3.2 than it does on Windows 8, as their Alps driver thinks it's 2 trackpads side-by-side... (On Linux it has no sensitivity or gestures on boot, but will correctly load the driver after resuming from sleep, at which point it even has two finger scrolling!).

1366x768 on a 13 inch laptop is acceptable. If it were a 15 incher, that would be tragic, but a higher res option is always a welcome thing to have.

Sadly, my 15.4" ProBook uses the same resolution as this. It's about all I can complain about on it, as it's otherwise a fairly nice build for the price. Still, Ubuntu does a nice job of saving as much vertical resolution as possible with global menu and the side dock. I know people complain that you can't move the Unity panel to any other edge, but really, with 16:9 panels being so common, it makes much more sense than it once did.

It really isn't. Regardless of screen size, coding demands a lot more real estate than plain-Jane WXGA can provide. The MINIMUM I would go with is 1440x900.

Yeah, that's the same vertical resolution as the iBook I had in 2004. Laptop display panels are just about the only part of the spec that's gone backwards over time. Once you get to 13-inch–ish displays, 16:9 just doesn't work well.

It totally irks me that as I'm winding down purchasing any additional apple hardware and I start looking at other options for laptops I'll find something that looks pretty nice and then after some digging find that it's got anywhere from horrible to so-so resolution. What really annoys me is that the information always seems to be buried - get a flyer from buy.com, Microcenter, newegg and they've got a zillion specials on simple workhorse laptops with info on the processor, RAM, HD, screen size, but they totally omit the resolution.

For lack of any better group to scapegoat, I'm going to blame the low-res trend on those people that use windows and fully maximize whatever application they're using. Thanks, you single-tasking jerks.

It totally irks me that as I'm winding down purchasing any additional apple hardware and I start looking at other options for laptops I'll find something that looks pretty nice and then after some digging find that it's got anywhere from horrible to so-so resolution.

Yes, I've become quite annoyed with Apple's policies and iOSization of Macs, but whenever I browse Linux/Windows laptops I have exactly the same experience.

Quote:

What really annoys me is that the information always seems to be buried - get a flyer from buy.com, Microcenter, newegg and they've got a zillion specials on simple workhorse laptops with info on the processor, RAM, HD, screen size, but they totally omit the resolution.

They know it sucks, and they know that most customers either don't care or don't know enough to ask. Hey, it's "HD"!

Quote:

For lack of any better group to scapegoat, I'm going to blame the low-res trend on those people that use windows and fully maximize whatever application they're using. Thanks, you single-tasking jerks.

The weird thing is that tablets are thus far mostly immune from the 16:9 low density plague. The Transformer Infinity is 1920x1200, which is more vertical pixels than my 21" iMac. And tablets are inherently more single-tasking than laptops. I don't get it at all.

4 years ago I bought a dell mini 9 with dellbuntu 8.04it sucked. the kernel was gutted for a fast bootthe dellbuntu was replaced with a dual boot of xp pro and real Ubuntu 8.04

today it runs Ubuntu 12.04 and some times xp in virtual box

I would love this 13" with the regular Ubuntu and the tricked out drivers

I had a Mini 9. The XP install on it was equally bad. The Mini9 seems to be the perfect example of where you want to rip of the reseller's OS installation and replace it with a nice pristine OEM copy of whatever OS you're talking about.

I had a Mini9 with Ubuntu 8.04 as well and ended up selling it to get a Mini10 which I now have running Win7 Starter. I really wanted to like the Ubuntu, but sound and my webcam broke after I upgraded to 9.04. Sound worked after much tweaking in 9.10. Work out of the box in 10.04 and 10.10, but my webcam never worked since the initial release. Unity was a major ClusterF on the 9" screen in 11.04, so I left it at 10.10 when I sold it.

I hope Dell doesn't do this half-assed like it did with the Mini9. They need to publish drivers or a comprehensive driver install package so everything "just works". I really got tired of having to tweaking things to the point where I was spending more time trying to fix the machine than actually using it.

The price tag of $1500 I've seen mentioned in a few places is way too high for the specs they offer. Also I don't really see the point of offering a laptop to developers below 1440x900 and even that barely cuts it.

Personally I would like a laptop at 1600x900 so I can work on two editor/ide panes side by side. The fact that they offer Linux as an OS which I presume means solid compatibility and good sleep options etc is a huge plus in my book but the hardware is still not that impressive.

Does anyone here have experience with a 1600x900 laptop which plays well with Linux? I am looking to replace my macbook air with a laptop running Fedora and so far I only see thinkpads which have good resolution.

More of that soldered on ram. Soldered on ram give this laptop an expiration date of about 2 years. I like dell, but not certain models. This one is junk guys, just like the adamo13. Looks nice and all, but it's very locked down. This is a bad way to start off an oem ubuntu. Ubuntu is awesome by the way.

Look up system 76, pricing reasonable for what you get. Get an ssd from newegg.

It really isn't. Regardless of screen size, coding demands a lot more real estate than plain-Jane WXGA can provide. The MINIMUM I would go with is 1440x900.

Intellij IDEA, for instance, is just about manageable on 1024x768 as long as one farms tool windows off separate desktops. Far from perfect, of course, but manageable. The glossy screen OTOH is going to be a PITA for those who like to code on the go.

4GB ram seems a little low for a modern dev environment? I'm not a dev but I imagine they need memory. I had 4GB 3 years ago on my low-end 2007 MacBook. My workplace last year bought me a shitty cheap laptop for email, writing reports etc and it had 6GB ...

Someone said this Dellbuntu has soldered in RAM? That seems cruel for a dev laptop.

I had a Mini9 with Ubuntu 8.04 as well and ended up selling it to get a Mini10 which I now have running Win7 Starter. I really wanted to like the Ubuntu, but sound and my webcam broke after I upgraded to 9.04. Sound worked after much tweaking in 9.10. Work out of the box in 10.04 and 10.10, but my webcam never worked since the initial release. Unity was a major ClusterF on the 9" screen in 11.04, so I left it at 10.10 when I sold it.

I hope Dell doesn't do this half-assed like it did with the Mini9. They need to publish drivers or a comprehensive driver install package so everything "just works". I really got tired of having to tweaking things to the point where I was spending more time trying to fix the machine than actually using it.

Agreed, but consider this - a new Windows release comes along once in three years on an average, whereas Ubuntu has a new one every six months, not to mention the numerous kernel updates along the way. While I'd like complete driver support as much as the next guy, something tells me Dell will not be committing to supporting future releases just yet.

I understand that Dell is nervous about launching Ubuntu for the home market, but still can't help feeling that marketing so directly to developers seems wrong, somehow. All that said, I'm not sure where the niche *is*, and can't think of a better strategy - so points to them for trying.

I hope this takes off, as it'd be nice to see Linux presented as more of an option by a well known brand name such as Dell.

Edit:

sn0v wrote:

Agreed, but consider this - a new Windows release comes along once in three years on an average, whereas Ubuntu has a new one every six months, not to mention the numerous kernel updates along the way. While I'd like complete driver support as much as the next guy, something tells me Dell will not be committing to supporting future releases just yet.

I had a Mini9 with Ubuntu 8.04 as well and ended up selling it to get a Mini10 which I now have running Win7 Starter. I really wanted to like the Ubuntu, but sound and my webcam broke after I upgraded to 9.04. Sound worked after much tweaking in 9.10. Work out of the box in 10.04 and 10.10, but my webcam never worked since the initial release. Unity was a major ClusterF on the 9" screen in 11.04, so I left it at 10.10 when I sold it.

I hope Dell doesn't do this half-assed like it did with the Mini9. They need to publish drivers or a comprehensive driver install package so everything "just works". I really got tired of having to tweaking things to the point where I was spending more time trying to fix the machine than actually using it.

Agreed, but consider this - a new Windows release comes along once in three years on an average, whereas Ubuntu has a new one every six months, not to mention the numerous kernel updates along the way. While I'd like complete driver support as much as the next guy, something tells me Dell will not be committing to supporting future releases just yet.

Dell has started (again) releasing decent laptops like the Inspiron 15R SE, which by the way is excellent, very upgdarable general purpose laptop with 1080p screen, Ivy Bridge processor, 8GB RAM, with Linux preinstalled in India and China and they're doing the same mistake as before. The laptops come with Ubuntu 10.04 preinstalled, people try to update and after the update a lot of things do not work any more. So, what now? Well, wait and hope that Dell has submitted the drivers upstream. Often Dell does not do that, or the drivers get submitted very very late. But can you wait six months until then next kernel release?

My point is that, they're applying the same methods that work for Windows to Linux. That will never work, because Linux users, at least the majority of them, are not Windows users. We love tinkering, playing with the device, we like the latest software and we're not afraid to do that. But that doesn't work when you don't have decent hardware support, or when you're shipping the product with kernel, that's been changed somehow. They could at least make an official PPA and put the drivers there, as System76 does, so that anyone can install them in case they screw up their Ubuntu installation.

I'll run Ubuntu on my next laptop, but my next laptop will have a 1920x1080 or higher resolution. No compromise. Also Dell is known for bad quality, if they can't do an Ubuntu laptop properly I'll rather buy a Windows laptop from ASUS or Lenovo Thinkpad and install Ubuntu myself.

It'll be interesting to see if Sputnik is more successful than any of Dell's previous forays into shipping machines with Linux pre-installed. There have been several such attempts, none of which, IIRC, lasted more than a year.

Other than servers, has any company actually succeeded in selling a Linux desktop or laptop on a larger scale? Isn't that because Linux users would rather install their own Linux OS than buy it preloaded?

I know it's been said already, but 1366x768? GLOSSY? What developers have they been talking to?!

I've got the older XPS 13 Studio (the one with the poorly designed fan outlets which overheats terribly). It's about 3 years old. That was 1280x800, so they've actually managed to drop the vertical resolution slightly. This is tragic!

Last Thursday I got my Nexus 7. That's an 1280x800 IPS and looks nice and crisp. How is it that Dell think people want a (personal opinion) worse screen on their productivity device as opposed to their handheld toy?

This is why I'm not upgrading my XPS 13: it's pretty much the same machine that I bought 3 years ago.

It'll be interesting to see if Sputnik is more successful than any of Dell's previous forays into shipping machines with Linux pre-installed. There have been several such attempts, none of which, IIRC, lasted more than a year.

In the third world countries you can easily find decent Dell/HP/Lenovo/Acer laptops without Windows preinstalled, and usually they're cheaper for 50-70 Euros. That's how I got my laptop. And I am proud to say that my laptop has never run anything else except Linux.

The problem is with first world countries, where Microsoft has complete monopoly over the computer market. If you want laptop with Linux you either pay the windows tax, or you buy it from companies like System76. But that might be quite expensive, especially for someone who doesn't live in North America.

Anyway, this Dell XPS 13 will be sold with windows preinstalled. And the windows tax is a deal breaker for me.

Unlike the Apple tax, here in the US, the Windows tax is often a discount on the price. Microsoft charges a fee for the OS and 3rd party software pays a fee to get trialware preinstalled on the OEM restore disk. The net result is often a lower price.

Microsoft now offers the option on some machines of having a clean install of Windows with nothing else installed, but that costs around $100 more than the bloatware machine.

Shop around & get the best hardware you can. If you are forced to repartition the disk, well that is a minor cost compared to putting up with hardware inferior to what you wanted just because you refuse to partition the disk as part of the Linux install process.